What has changed? Nothing. Opponents can savage them in the next election
Not in the least. Having state-appointed Senators would largely eliminate the campaigning that costs millions of dollars and takes up time that the Senate members should really be making better use of. They'd be directly accountable only to the state legislature, which could call them to appear at any time if they weren't happy with their performance. If the people themselves aren't happy about a Senator's actions, they can always pressure their state government to bring the errant Senator in line.
Another thing that would change is that it'd be very unlikely you'd see half the state legislature fail to vote for their Senators because of apathy, as almost always happens in general elections. I'd also think that the state legislature has a much better handle on exactly how their Senators' actions correspond to the needs of the state than the people that are able to be swayed by attack ads on TV, and there are plenty of issues that are of legitimate interest to the state that the populace neither knows nor cares about. I personally think a popularly elected House and state appointed Senate strikes a reasonable balance of federal power between the state governments and the citizens thereof.
Close to half the fucking state is mountains, tard.
Half the state, eh? The whole time I lived in Great Falls, I didn't see too many mountains, and I distinctly remember having to drive away from the city for a *long* time before seeing any.
I did see lots of ICBM silos, however. And antelope. But not many mountains.
That makes a bit more sense of their recommendation, but I'm not betting money that a lawyer is going to be able to do a better job than an engineer when looking for prior art that has to do with the engineer's field of competence, unless he's just limiting himself to previously granted patents.
Software patents are debatable, but there's no doubt that tech companies with deep pockets are totally scamming the PTO with crap like this.
They're not scamming the PTO - by its actions, the PTO is encouraging such dubious patents in the quest for ever-greater funding. The PTO is scamming *us*.
The lawyers won't let us due to liability for double damages should it be discovered in the future that we're infringing on someone else's patent and it was possible that we knew about it.
And the lawyers don't get hammered for recommending such a willful disregard of due diligence? There's part of the problem right there. It sounds to me like they're effectively advocating fraud against the federal government.
Sad truth is that recent patent rulings favor patent holders anyway, establishing a precedent that encourages holders of frivolous or over-broad patents to sue and win. So big companies are just buying up patents and shooting off the litigation.
...which then brings up the question of why we continue to fund the USPTO when the patent arm of the agency is of such obviously questionable benefit. Might as well just have patents set up like copyrights/trademarks where you send your paperwork in, it's duly recorded somewhere, and you progress from there. We'd still have the same number of patent infringement suits, but we wouldn't be pissing away $2 billion of federal money each year for a bunch of engineers to rubber-stamp applications without researching them.
The USPTO's examiner positions start at the GS-5 pay grade, which can run anywhere from $38,435 - $49,964, depending on time in service. The highest grade you're likely to achieve working there after many years is GS-13 (tops out at $113,151), unless you can weasel your way into a GM rate after 15 years or more.
For the qualifications they're demanding, those are ludicrous salaries, and some of the qualifications themselves just don't make sense.
Beats me, although I think it's quite possible to be a good cop without being able to shoot well. Most cops just aren't that interested in firearms, so I guess they don't feel the need to stay very proficient beyond getting past the (very) minimal quarterly qualifications. My tactical shooting instructor is a state trooper who also does a lot of firearms instruction for his agency and has a list of professional certifications as long as my arm, and he says sometimes it amazes him how poorly his colleagues handle themselves behind the trigger, and that all of us in his class shoot better than the vast majority of his co-workers. For the record, he generally shoots better than any of us in his class. He's certainly better than I am.:-)
I just think it's a mistake to automatically assume that government service = competence when it comes to handling firearms, as Lee Paige of the DEA so ably demonstrated a few years ago.
Remember the key point - VoiceWing service is CHEAPER than Vonage.
And my VoIP provider (Vitelity) is cheaper than either of them, as are a number of other VoIP providers, so color me unimpressed with Verizon's offering.
One thing to remember is that Verizon, AT&T, etc. really don't see much of a profit from regulated phone service, or even LD service - it's the add-on services (Caller ID, VM, three-way calling, etc.) that they make a mint on.
(+1, Insightful). I pay less for my entire VoIP usage each month than I would for just Caller ID service from BellSouth. My VoIP provider charges me 9/10ths of a cent for each CNAM lookup, so I'd have to receive almost 1100 individual inbound calls each and every month just to equal BellSouth's Caller ID service charge, and I'm sure each lookup costs BellSouth *far* less than the piddling amount that I pay now.
Even if the product is not yet being sold, one should still be able to conclusively prove they are currently making a good-faith effort to bring it to market.
But the whole point of patents is to encourage innovation, by providing protection for unique ideas. Why would anybody bother coming up with new ideas if anybody else could just copy them the next day? (That's especially true for startups, which don't have the money to compete head to head with larger, more established companies.)
Not having the money to compete head to head with larger companies usually means not having the money to fight a protracted court battle in defense of your patents. In the real world patents don't often benefit the individual inventor or small startup very much, but still serve as a very effective hammer that large companies can use to squash legitimate competition even when the patent covers a method that is both obvious and pre-existing.
I would rather see someone put in jail for 12 days on a small mistake such as this because they acted promptly and in the best interest of the school's populus than to dick around for months trying to figure out what to do.
So it doesn't matter that someone innocent is deprived of their liberty and gains an arrest record so long as the government is "doing something"?
Cops have incredible restraint and have to rely on years of training and experience to know where the threat is and what will be between his gun and the bullet when he pulls that trigger. Unfortunately, a few training classes and a weekly trip to the range isn't enough to train for real life combat situations. The range has static targets, not teenagers running around screaming.
A.) Go to a police range sometime and see just how proficient most of the guys in blue are. While you're there, ask the rangemaster how often he has to replace the uprights and other equipment because the shooters there keep tearing them up because they can't hit their targets even at seven yards.
B.) Show me a cop that's not SWAT that goes to the range more often than is strictly required for sidearm qualification (hint - four or fewer times a year), and that actually takes any kind of tactical training outside of what he learns at the police academy.
I think you're seriously misguided about how competent the average cop is with any firearm.
So why not form a non-profit corporation somewhat similar to SoundExchange, which would act as an intermediary to negotiate webcasting fees with a large number of non-RIAA copyright holders and with a stated charter to work towards the greatest distribution of the participating artists' works? They could have standard contracts for both rights holders and webcasters that would make everything all nice and legal, which given the economy of scale would save money for everyone involved. The individual webcasters could pay a reasonable yearly fee to this organization to fund its activities and to cover royalty payments without getting bogged down in a bunch of paperwork.
And if he's responding to a domestic violence call, he wants to get there ASAP, but not necessarily warn the person that they're coming
Nor will he be warning the traffic around him that they may soon be dealing with an unpredictable and potentially unsafe driver in their midst. Again, what makes the lives of the victims of the domestic violence call more important than those of the other drivers on the road, particularly if the LEO is going to be blowing through intersections sans lights?
On the one hand, I'm glad that cops will be forced to obey the law, and not think they are above it. There are cops in my town who park in the fire lane all day.
Go visit the CompUSA on Orange Blossom Trail in Orlando sometime, and I just about guarantee that you'll find an Orange County deputy sheriff's car parked in the fire lane. CompUSA hires off-duty deputies for store security, and without exception they park right in the fire lane every fricking time for their whole shift. The deputy is often wandering around in the back part of the store, out of sight of his car, so the fire department would have just as difficult a time with that car as with any other if they needed to use the lane.
I'd argue that whatever the cop is responding to would have to be pretty damn important for it to weigh more heavily than the safety of the 10-15 people that may be using the intersection right then, not to mention the officer's own safety. If he's responding to a holdup where the robber has a single hostage, and ends up causing an accident that kills 3 people (not to mention he never arrives at the crime scene), how is that better for society than if the hostage had simply been killed?
Which is why the state laws are written to keep this kind of hooliganism down and hopefully prevent these accidents.
Of course, that depends on the police having to police themselves, and that often just doesn't happen because of the bullshit "brotherhood" thing.
Case in point - I have a friend of mine whose husband is a cop. A few years ago, she was out driving drunk with her pre-school daughter in the car (as she'd done a few times before and for which she'd gotten a bitching at from me) and got pulled over. She told the cop that pulled her over who her husband was. The officer on the scene called the husband on his cell phone (to keep it off the radio logs) and he came to the scene. End result - he took her home in his squad car, dropped her off, and picked up a friend to get her car - no ticket, no real consequences at all. A few weeks later, she was out driving loaded again (with the kid again, no less) and totalled the car (thankfully no one was hurt), but she spent a week in jail because *that* time it was in another jurisdiction and the cop that responded was actually looking out for the public's safety, followed the law, and told her husband to kiss off when he tried to get him to drop the charges. Even though she's my friend, I personally think she should have gone to jail for the first offense, and gone for a time long enough for her to understand the seriousness of it - more than the piddling week she got for the second one. I also think every cop involved in the first offense (her husband included) should face sanctions for their actions - no regular citizen would have been afforded the courtesy of being let go, and it's clearly not in the public's best interest to be letting drunk drivers off without charging them.
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What has changed? Nothing. Opponents can savage them in the next election
Not in the least. Having state-appointed Senators would largely eliminate the campaigning that costs millions of dollars and takes up time that the Senate members should really be making better use of. They'd be directly accountable only to the state legislature, which could call them to appear at any time if they weren't happy with their performance. If the people themselves aren't happy about a Senator's actions, they can always pressure their state government to bring the errant Senator in line.
Another thing that would change is that it'd be very unlikely you'd see half the state legislature fail to vote for their Senators because of apathy, as almost always happens in general elections. I'd also think that the state legislature has a much better handle on exactly how their Senators' actions correspond to the needs of the state than the people that are able to be swayed by attack ads on TV, and there are plenty of issues that are of legitimate interest to the state that the populace neither knows nor cares about. I personally think a popularly elected House and state appointed Senate strikes a reasonable balance of federal power between the state governments and the citizens thereof.
But as Vermont's logo is "Do not tread on me" I'm supprised they didn't pass such a law first.
:-)
They're too busy pissing off all the anti-gun folks with their almost complete lack of gun laws.
Close to half the fucking state is mountains, tard.
Half the state, eh? The whole time I lived in Great Falls, I didn't see too many mountains, and I distinctly remember having to drive away from the city for a *long* time before seeing any.
I did see lots of ICBM silos, however. And antelope. But not many mountains.
The federal government has been "corrupt" in the sense of usurping states' powers since the early- to mid-1800's.
True, but it's a whole different ballgame when you add instantaneous communications into the mix.
They're the ones that do the research
That makes a bit more sense of their recommendation, but I'm not betting money that a lawyer is going to be able to do a better job than an engineer when looking for prior art that has to do with the engineer's field of competence, unless he's just limiting himself to previously granted patents.
Software patents are debatable, but there's no doubt that tech companies with deep pockets are totally scamming the PTO with crap like this.
They're not scamming the PTO - by its actions, the PTO is encouraging such dubious patents in the quest for ever-greater funding. The PTO is scamming *us*.
The lawyers won't let us due to liability for double damages should it be discovered in the future that we're infringing on someone else's patent and it was possible that we knew about it.
And the lawyers don't get hammered for recommending such a willful disregard of due diligence? There's part of the problem right there. It sounds to me like they're effectively advocating fraud against the federal government.
Sad truth is that recent patent rulings favor patent holders anyway, establishing a precedent that encourages holders of frivolous or over-broad patents to sue and win. So big companies are just buying up patents and shooting off the litigation.
...which then brings up the question of why we continue to fund the USPTO when the patent arm of the agency is of such obviously questionable benefit. Might as well just have patents set up like copyrights/trademarks where you send your paperwork in, it's duly recorded somewhere, and you progress from there. We'd still have the same number of patent infringement suits, but we wouldn't be pissing away $2 billion of federal money each year for a bunch of engineers to rubber-stamp applications without researching them.
The USPTO's examiner positions start at the GS-5 pay grade, which can run anywhere from $38,435 - $49,964, depending on time in service. The highest grade you're likely to achieve working there after many years is GS-13 (tops out at $113,151), unless you can weasel your way into a GM rate after 15 years or more.
For the qualifications they're demanding, those are ludicrous salaries, and some of the qualifications themselves just don't make sense.
Beats me, although I think it's quite possible to be a good cop without being able to shoot well. Most cops just aren't that interested in firearms, so I guess they don't feel the need to stay very proficient beyond getting past the (very) minimal quarterly qualifications. My tactical shooting instructor is a state trooper who also does a lot of firearms instruction for his agency and has a list of professional certifications as long as my arm, and he says sometimes it amazes him how poorly his colleagues handle themselves behind the trigger, and that all of us in his class shoot better than the vast majority of his co-workers. For the record, he generally shoots better than any of us in his class. He's certainly better than I am. :-)
I just think it's a mistake to automatically assume that government service = competence when it comes to handling firearms, as Lee Paige of the DEA so ably demonstrated a few years ago.
Remember the key point - VoiceWing service is CHEAPER than Vonage.
And my VoIP provider (Vitelity) is cheaper than either of them, as are a number of other VoIP providers, so color me unimpressed with Verizon's offering.
One thing to remember is that Verizon, AT&T, etc. really don't see much of a profit from regulated phone service, or even LD service - it's the add-on services (Caller ID, VM, three-way calling, etc.) that they make a mint on.
(+1, Insightful). I pay less for my entire VoIP usage each month than I would for just Caller ID service from BellSouth. My VoIP provider charges me 9/10ths of a cent for each CNAM lookup, so I'd have to receive almost 1100 individual inbound calls each and every month just to equal BellSouth's Caller ID service charge, and I'm sure each lookup costs BellSouth *far* less than the piddling amount that I pay now.
Vitelity user here too. I'm not going to be happy if they go away.
Even if the product is not yet being sold, one should still be able to conclusively prove they are currently making a good-faith effort to bring it to market.
But the whole point of patents is to encourage innovation, by providing protection for unique ideas. Why would anybody bother coming up with new ideas if anybody else could just copy them the next day? (That's especially true for startups, which don't have the money to compete head to head with larger, more established companies.)
Not having the money to compete head to head with larger companies usually means not having the money to fight a protracted court battle in defense of your patents. In the real world patents don't often benefit the individual inventor or small startup very much, but still serve as a very effective hammer that large companies can use to squash legitimate competition even when the patent covers a method that is both obvious and pre-existing.
At least the difference between dollars and cents didn't come up during the discussion with Verizon. :-)
I would rather see someone put in jail for 12 days on a small mistake such as this because they acted promptly and in the best interest of the school's populus than to dick around for months trying to figure out what to do.
So it doesn't matter that someone innocent is deprived of their liberty and gains an arrest record so long as the government is "doing something"?
For someone who was out to shoot people, armed students would've been obvious targets, not a guaranteed end to the situation.
That's part of the reason why you carry concealed, and is a reasonably good argument why it's preferable to open carry.
Cops have incredible restraint and have to rely on years of training and experience to know where the threat is and what will be between his gun and the bullet when he pulls that trigger. Unfortunately, a few training classes and a weekly trip to the range isn't enough to train for real life combat situations. The range has static targets, not teenagers running around screaming.
A.) Go to a police range sometime and see just how proficient most of the guys in blue are. While you're there, ask the rangemaster how often he has to replace the uprights and other equipment because the shooters there keep tearing them up because they can't hit their targets even at seven yards.
B.) Show me a cop that's not SWAT that goes to the range more often than is strictly required for sidearm qualification (hint - four or fewer times a year), and that actually takes any kind of tactical training outside of what he learns at the police academy.
I think you're seriously misguided about how competent the average cop is with any firearm.
So why not form a non-profit corporation somewhat similar to SoundExchange, which would act as an intermediary to negotiate webcasting fees with a large number of non-RIAA copyright holders and with a stated charter to work towards the greatest distribution of the participating artists' works? They could have standard contracts for both rights holders and webcasters that would make everything all nice and legal, which given the economy of scale would save money for everyone involved. The individual webcasters could pay a reasonable yearly fee to this organization to fund its activities and to cover royalty payments without getting bogged down in a bunch of paperwork.
And if he's responding to a domestic violence call, he wants to get there ASAP, but not necessarily warn the person that they're coming
Nor will he be warning the traffic around him that they may soon be dealing with an unpredictable and potentially unsafe driver in their midst. Again, what makes the lives of the victims of the domestic violence call more important than those of the other drivers on the road, particularly if the LEO is going to be blowing through intersections sans lights?
On the one hand, I'm glad that cops will be forced to obey the law, and not think they are above it. There are cops in my town who park in the fire lane all day.
Go visit the CompUSA on Orange Blossom Trail in Orlando sometime, and I just about guarantee that you'll find an Orange County deputy sheriff's car parked in the fire lane. CompUSA hires off-duty deputies for store security, and without exception they park right in the fire lane every fricking time for their whole shift. The deputy is often wandering around in the back part of the store, out of sight of his car, so the fire department would have just as difficult a time with that car as with any other if they needed to use the lane.
I'd argue that whatever the cop is responding to would have to be pretty damn important for it to weigh more heavily than the safety of the 10-15 people that may be using the intersection right then, not to mention the officer's own safety. If he's responding to a holdup where the robber has a single hostage, and ends up causing an accident that kills 3 people (not to mention he never arrives at the crime scene), how is that better for society than if the hostage had simply been killed?
Which is why the state laws are written to keep this kind of hooliganism down and hopefully prevent these accidents.
Of course, that depends on the police having to police themselves, and that often just doesn't happen because of the bullshit "brotherhood" thing.
Case in point - I have a friend of mine whose husband is a cop. A few years ago, she was out driving drunk with her pre-school daughter in the car (as she'd done a few times before and for which she'd gotten a bitching at from me) and got pulled over. She told the cop that pulled her over who her husband was. The officer on the scene called the husband on his cell phone (to keep it off the radio logs) and he came to the scene. End result - he took her home in his squad car, dropped her off, and picked up a friend to get her car - no ticket, no real consequences at all. A few weeks later, she was out driving loaded again (with the kid again, no less) and totalled the car (thankfully no one was hurt), but she spent a week in jail because *that* time it was in another jurisdiction and the cop that responded was actually looking out for the public's safety, followed the law, and told her husband to kiss off when he tried to get him to drop the charges. Even though she's my friend, I personally think she should have gone to jail for the first offense, and gone for a time long enough for her to understand the seriousness of it - more than the piddling week she got for the second one. I also think every cop involved in the first offense (her husband included) should face sanctions for their actions - no regular citizen would have been afforded the courtesy of being let go, and it's clearly not in the public's best interest to be letting drunk drivers off without charging them.
Such as?